My name is Blob Thing and I am a small pink soft toy. Together with my sister Winefride I have toured across Tyne and Wear over the course of two weeks and together we have attempted to complete the Great North Snowdog Trail. This consisted of us having to find sixty-two Snowdogs and ninety-seven little Snowdogs. That's one hundred and fifty-nine dogs in total.
And that's a lot of dogs.
We almost succeeded too. We managed to see one hundred and fifty-eight of the dogs in their locations. The only one we missed was called Patchwork who wasn't in Tyne and Wear at all. Seeing Patchwork was impossible for us. Never mind. We saw every other Snowdog and little Snowdog and we are very proud of ourselves for this achievement. We've also seen a lot of amazing sights along the way because Tyne and Wear is full of wonderful places. We will be seeing Patchwork too, at the Snowdog farewell event at the start of December.
For more information about our amazing quest and the way we were helped by our person, please see my first post on this blog. It can be found at http://blobandthesnowdogs.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/blob-thing-and-winefride-welcome-you-to.html I confess that we all got more than a little obsessive about Snowdogs in the first half of November 2016. There are worse things to get obsessive about.
Please remember that the Great North Snowdogs existed not just as an enjoyable addition to the landscape of our wonderful county of Tyne and Wear but as a way to raise funds for St. Oswald's Hospice which is our local hospice and which does amazing work. To find out more about the hospice and see ways in which you can donate, should you wish to, please head over to their website. It can be found at http://www.stoswaldsuk.org/
I will include the above text in all my posts. It explains everything. If you get obsessive about Snowdogs too then don't feel you should read it every time. That would just be taking obsession a step too far.
Now. I am dictating the extra words to my person on the evening of 21st November. But I see that this post will be published on the morning of 2nd December. When this post is published I will be feeling very, very, very, very, very excited indeed. I don't think Winefride will because she doesn't know about this. She's going to get an amazing surprise.
The days from 2nd to 4th December are the days of the Great North Snowdogs Farewell Event. All the big Snowdogs will have been polished and cleaned to look their best and all the dogs will be gathered together into one place for a big gathering.
And on 2nd December, when this is published, my person is taking Winefride and me to see them. Not only will we see the Patchwork dog we couldn't see because it was at Kielder rather than anywhere in the county of Tyne and Wear, but we will see all of the dogs again. All of them. Won't that be the most amazing thing that could possibly happen to two small autistic soft toys on 2nd December? Yes. It will. I am looking forward to that event very, very, very, very, very much. Can you tell?
I'm hoping that Winefride and I will be allowed to sit on Patchwork and have our photographs taken and that nobody will be telling us off. There are a couple of other Snowdogs I think we need to sit on too. Disco Dog (number 36) lived at The Sage in Gateshead and was placed on a very high up platform which meant that we couldn't sit on it and could only sit next to its feet. That was very disappointing to both Winefride and myself. She didn't say so in words of course but I could tell she was sad about it. We were able to sit on sixty of the sixty-one Snowdogs we saw. It was just Disco Dog who we couldn't sit on.
There are a few of the little Snowdogs neither of us have sat on too. Those ones are all at Washington Galleries Shopping Centre. We might go back next week and see if we can get better pictures - because the little dogs should still be there. And if we're feeling very naughty we might even cross the barriers and try for pictures of the dogs who we couldn't meet up close. The worst that can happen is that they can tell my person off for being so naughty. And since she's autistic she can probably get away with it without being thrown into prison for the rest of her life. I hope so anyway. I would get quite bored eventually without having my person to take me out and I wouldn't want to join her in prison where she wouldn't be able to take me out anyway.
Yes. The day of publication is a very exciting day. Very exciting. I can hardly contain my excitement. Even though, as I dictate this, it's still eleven days away.
Today's post contains pictures of the following Snowdog:
Dog Number 15
Photographed on 15th November 2016
This dog is called Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.
This dog lived, for the duration of the Snowdogs festival, inside Pets Corner, Jesmond Dene, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
We really liked Pets Corner. My person needs to take us back to Jesmond Dene regularly because it's very pretty. She has been promising to let us explore it properly for ages and hasn't even taken us to sit on her favourite stone there which is by a waterfall. She likes to lie back on the stone and close her eyes and then all she can hear is the sound of the water and all she can feel - apart from that constant of clothing - is the air on her face and through her fingers. Mind you, quite possibly she wouldn't want to lie back on that stone right at this moment. As I am dictating this paragraph to her, on the evening of 21st November, it is very wet outside and windy and cold and she is extremely glad that we're all inside a house. And she says that with the amount of rain there has been it's possible that the stone she likes to lie on might be covered with waterfall because sometimes the water level is high enough to swamp her stone. She says that the sound is excellent then though. She just wouldn't want to lie down on the stone and listen to it.
Pets Corner was excellent. Winefride and I got to see goats and pigs and giant rabbits and guinea pigs and lots of birds as well and we really liked that. We didn't see the owl though who was being very wise, much like an owl, and stayed inside its house that day. My person says she has chatted with the owl once.
And for our purposes pets corner was even better because not just one, but two Snowdogs lived there. Our third and fourth of the day. The third and fourth that we didn't see on the day we were left at home.
This dog was painted by Julia Roxburgh who is a ceramic artist. According to the official website she couldn't decide how to decorate the dog or what pattern to use so she used lots of different patterns. That seems like a good choice to me.
Now. I have to have a moan here. I'm going to repeat this moan six times because it's a moan related to the finding of six Snowdogs. I might even moan again when I talk about some little Snowdog packs.
I said that we photographed this dog on 15th November. That's true. We saw it on our very last day of Snowdog hunting. The dogs were going to be leaving their temporary homes on 21st November or as soon after that as they could all be collected so the last day for searching would have been the 20th. But we were away visiting my creator from the 16th to the 20th so the 15th was our last Snowdog day - and we had only started our quest at the start of the month and had been forced to take days off too.
My moan is this: My person had already SEEN this dog.
Yes. It's true. She had. She saw this dog - and others - on 6th November. On that afternoon she had decided to go and see some of the dogs in Newcastle and walk from Gosforth to Seven Stories in Ouseburn. She would see six Snowdogs and some packs of little Snowdogs too. She got ready to go out, even though the weather wasn't great, and caught a bus to Gosforth. When she got there it was hailing and she nearly came straight back home. But the hail cleared and she reached the first dog. While walking to the second it rained on her hard and she was glad of her adventure coat. She persevered and saw all of the six dogs.
BUT she saw the six dogs ALONE.
Yes. It's true. She was alone. She reached the first dog of the day, Addam Upright, and realised she had forgotten to take me with her. And she had forgotten Winefride as well. How dreadful. She. Had. Forgotten. Us. Did she come back home and collect us? No she didn't. She just went to see the dogs on her own. She says that she was sad when she discovered we weren't with her. But obviously not sad enough to come and get us. Oh no. Not my person. She carried on regardless.
You can imagine how angry I was when she got back later that day. I was livid. I'm usually a very joyful small pink soft toy and my smile is famous, or should be famous, across the world. I'm a happy person. But that evening I was cross, cross, cross and I cried a lot too when I realised that we had missed out on seeing dogs.
Eventually my person promised me that she would try to take us out to see those dogs and that she would do her best to make sure that we would see every single one of the dogs we had missed. She would walk the whole walk again - and as it turned out she walked even further second time round than the had the first.
I calmed down at the news that we would see the dogs. In the end it worked out very well because we didn't get wet at all when we went to see the dogs we had missed. She got soaked. We stayed dry. Serves her right. Of the sixty-one Snowdogs we saw these six were the last.
It was a very good day once we came to experience it. We saw the dogs and three packs of little dogs. Then we walked to Byker and my person spent 99 pence on four books. She likes cheap books. And she likes books to be cheap. Then we caught a Metro and went to see the Snowdog pack in Tynemouth that I've already posted about. Then we had a very nice walk and ate some very nice chips in a very nice location.
Winefride and I had a lovely time and now that it's happened I don't mind having missed out on the 6th. And I am very thankful to my person for taking us on a special trip even though she had already taken the trip. We picked up our certificates that day too for completing the Great North Snowdog Trail. I am glad to have my certificate. And I am glad that we all heartily deserve our certificates.
Here are our pictures of Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. The 59th Snowdog seen by Winefride and myself.
You can see how excited and happy both Winefride and I were to be on the trail of Snowdogs. We have had an amazing time. And I think our person has enjoyed herself too.
Firstly, here are our photographs from 15th November. Glad to be there.
And here are the pictures from 6th November. The day my person forgot to take us out. At least we got to see the dogs on a day when it wasn't raining. That's good.
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